


All Ghosts Are Time Travellers

by sleep_not



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Season/Series 02, Storytelling, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:20:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28680249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleep_not/pseuds/sleep_not
Summary: Robin tells a ghost story. Nope, sorry, Robin tells a time travel story. Basically, Robin tells a story and now Alison is never going to be able to sleep peacefully again.
Relationships: Alison/Mike (Ghosts TV 2019)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 42





	All Ghosts Are Time Travellers

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! I hope you enjoy this story. It's been a long time since I posted anything and my first time for posting on AO3 so any feedback is welcome! 
> 
> This story diverges from canon from S2 Episode 3 onward, with brief mention of a character from S2 Episode 4. This story does contain a major character death but not for any of the major characters who aren't already dead! I don't think it merits more than a Gen rating but if anyone thinks differently then please let me know and I'll up it.

It was film night and Alison had ended up deciding on the film again because this time it was Robin and Thomas arguing over whose turn it was to pick.

She’d actually been pretty pleased with her choice. The 1960’s adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine was a classic that she felt a lot of the ghosts would enjoy. Naturally, you couldn’t please everyone and Mary would probably be concerned it was the work of the Devil and Fanny would probably claim it was all twaddle, but she thought the Captain might have read the book and Pat and Julian were sure to have seen the film at some point when they still counted among the living. It had action and a beautiful woman in it too so she was sure Thomas and Kitty would like it.

Plus, she was getting utterly sick of the regular arguments over whose turn it was to pick the film.

As usual, the ghosts got quite drawn into it; gasping in surprise at the sequence when the time machine skipped forward far into the future and shushing Mike when he asked if Alison wanted more popcorn (because he’d eaten the whole bowl himself), not that he could hear them. Alison did feel a bit bad for Mary near the end since she’d forgotten about how the Time Traveller used fire to defeat the Morlocks but Mary actually took it all pretty well, considering. Probably because she’d decided the Morlocks were demon spawn.

Afterwards, Pat suggested they all sit down in a circle by the fire and tell scary stories, since Halloween was coming up. Surprisingly, all the ghosts seemed keen on his suggestion for once and there was very little grumbling about it as they settled down. When Alison explained what they were planning on doing, Mike immediately begged off, claiming he was knackered and ready for bed, rather than the truth which was that her husband was a great big scaredy-cat.

Alison had planned to tell them all about Slender Man but then Thomas said cattily, “Don’t you find Robin’s resemblance to the Morlocks quite uncanny, Kitty?”

Kitty giggled and denied it, but Alison didn’t miss the glare exchanged between the two men. They clearly had not forgotten their earlier argument.

The next thing she knew, Robin was volunteering to tell a story.

“I tell.”

“Ooh a Stone Age horror story! Is it about when lightning hit a tree and frightened you?”

“Shut up, Julian.” came the usual chorus.

Robin shook his head solemnly.

“I tell time story.”

This got everyone’s attention, even those like Julian who were preparing for an incredibly long story full of bad grammar.

“Time of story, I no dead. No house, land all trees, sky bigger. When Moonah high, I hunt.”

Robin waved his arms round trying to describe the scene and Alison found herself picturing what this land must have looked like back then, just a deep forest spanning the entire country.

“I no first ghost here,” Robin said and everyone leaned forward in interest, completely caught up in his story. This was the first time Robin had ever admitted that. He was usually proud to shove the fact he predated everyone in their faces.

“Moonah bright, I hunt in forest.” Robin continued, “I young then, lots time no dead. Then, BAM!” He clapped his hands together, “Monster come, POOF! No there then there. No see then see. Big dead monster made metal and um,”

He pointed to an empty light fitting.

“Made of metal and wires?” Alison checked.

“Yes. Scary monster, metal twisted like front Pat’s bus when it hit tree, blood drip from face.”

“...You are talking about the Stone Age, right,” Julian asked sceptically.

Robin nodded, “I brave, go look. Monster eat a man, he fight and kill it but it eat him.” He gestured to his abdomen, “Monster get him with metal claw, go right through.”

“Oh my!” Fanny winced at the gory description.

“He still alive.” Robin said. “He different from me, short hair, clothes no fur, but still look like man. Like me. So, I get him out of monster. Metal twisted, took long time. He alive but no talk, in pain. When I pull out claw, he die.”

“I say, old chap,” The Captain murmured.

“I give burial where lake now is. Monster there too but leave out under Moonah. Moonah watch over them both.”

“But hows d’you know he’s a ghost, Robin?” Mary asked, “Didst you see him after you died?”

Robin shook his head, “Time pass, long time, I grow big and die. More time pass, dead man burial mound go away, monster grow smaller then gone, earth move, trees grow, men come and go, more time pass.”

“I get new friends,” Robin smiled, “Mary, Annie, Humphrey, Kitty. Then dead man come to house alive.”

“What?!” Alison couldn’t help interrupting, “what do you mean?” Several of the ghosts joined her in questioning him.

Robin waved a hand to silence them.

“One day,” he explained, “I saw dead man from long ago, but he no dead, he alive. He wearing same clothes as before, same short hair, he come to house and say he cousin something. He visit often after that, become good friends with family and write stories and poems to make them happy. Talk a lot about books and history. I surprised so follow him lots but he normal, so I no sure any more if he same man.”

Next to Alison, Mary shifted slightly as if uncomfortable.

“Then one day when he say he come, he no come.” Robin said sadly. “I know then, that he same, that he no more come. Family look for him, no find. Think something bad happen to him. Think he dead. Very sad. Even put stone with words to remember him in garden, by lake.”

“Oh, I remember that plaque,” Kitty said, “But wasn’t that for-”

“Thomas came to house.”

Everyone’s eyes shot round to look at Thomas. He’d stood up from his chair. His fists were clenched tightly and he was glaring at Robin but he didn’t say anything. The silence in the room was so thick you could have heard a pin drop.

“He say,” Robin said carefully, “That he woke up dead by lake. Say he no remember what happened but think die in duel. Have wound here,” he pointed again to his abdomen, “Think musket ball go right through.”

Alison couldn’t help looking back at the bloody wound on the left-hand side of Thomas’s waistcoat. She’d assumed like everyone else that it was a gunshot wound, but it equally could have been caused by a piece of shrapnel from a crash. 

“Do you… not remember, Thomas?” Alison asked.

For the first time ever, Thomas ignored her.

“God dam you sir!” He thundered at Robin, “How dare you insinuate such rubbish!”

“I no say anything because I don’t know how you can be alive, dead, alive, dead. I no understand then but now I do: monster no monster, was time machine. You mean to go to house but you crash in my time and sleep under lake.”

Thomas scoffed angrily and stormed forward, grabbing at Robin’s furs, since he didn’t have an actual collar to grab, and shaking him.

“You’re making this up!”

“Week after you come, Moonah high again. Everyone asleep,” Robin continued mercilessly, “I outside and see. Time machine come.”

Thomas let him go abruptly and staggered back. “I don’t need to hear this,” he muttered, but he didn’t leave the room.

“Different machine. New man. He look for you too. He have thing, like phone.” Robin waved at Alison’s smartphone that she was cradling loosely in her hands. “He use it to track you. He go to lake. It tell him you in lake.”

“What happened next?” Pat whispered.

“He see stone with words for Thomas.” Finally, Robin paused, as if considering how he should phrase his words. His voice gentled.

“He very sad. Then angry. He pick up stone with words and throw it into lake. He say “You promised!” Then he leave in time machine. Never see again.”

“I am leaving,” Thomas said. "I hope you all realise this is just a story. There is no possible way I could be a time traveller! I am Thomas Thorne, Romantic poet, blasted Byron’s contemporary and better. I died on October 10th 1824.”

He walked out, but Alison could see how flustered he was from the way he phased straight through a wall rather than the door.

“Stone with words, what you call it, Kitty?”

“A memorial plaque, Robin.”

“Ya, it sink in lake, land where I buried him. I go check once.” Robin said. “His bones are dust, but I know place still.”

“Charming!” Fanny exclaimed, “Well, I think I’ve heard enough. Thank you, Robin, for thoroughly upsetting Thomas, as if we don’t have to put up with his sighing enough already.”

Julian laughed, “You really had us there! Great jape. If we were alive you’d be dining out on this one for months.”

“'twas in jest?” Mary asked uncertainly. She got up and followed Julian and Fanny out.

“Well I think that was quite chilling!” Kitty said admiringly, “Why, I am shivering just thinking of the implications. Maybe we should have a sleepover, Alison, after such a tale?”

“No thanks, Kitty, I’ll take a rain check.”

“A rain… check?”

“I’ll explain that some other time. I’m, uh, going to bed. With Mike, not you, Kitty. Thanks Robin, for ensuring I never sleep again though.”

Robin cackled, pleased as always at giving someone a scare. The lights flickered, leaving the living room bathed solely in the light from the fireplace.

“Just think,” Kitty continued in the flickering light, “Thomas must be from the future to have travelled the way he did. Maybe you could leave a note for him, Alison, so he doesn’t have to die?”

The remaining ghosts in the room fell completely silent at her suggestion.

“Do you… think that’s possible?” Pat asked. 

“What’s done is done,” The Captain stated heavily.

“But it’s not,” Kitty pointed out innocently, “Because in the future Thomas is still alive and if he were never to travel backward in time he would never have the crash that killed him, and then his friend would never need to mourn him, wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

Alison felt a headache coming on. “I think… I don’t even know where to begin. I’m going to bed. I’ll see if Thomas wants to talk about it in the morning. Robin- this definitely wasn’t something you made up, was it?”

Robin smiled at her wryly, “Know place in lake because marked it with claw of time machine. Buried there with him.”

Alison shuddered at the thought of Thomas, annoyingly flirtatious though he was, being buried for centuries with the shrapnel that had killed him.

“Goodnight.” She said, leaving the room with Kitty on her heels, “No really, Kitty, no sleepover tonight.”

Robin waved at Pat and the Captain and slid out through the outer wall into the garden.

“What do you think the man meant by ‘You promised’?” Pat asked the Captain as they left to go to their respective beds.

The Captain sighed, “It’s probably the same promise broken by so many soldiers over the years. He promised to return.”

“I wonder if he really has forgotten,” Pat said. 

“Yes,” The Captain said, pausing momentarily by the hall window that looked out towards the lake. He could see a solitary figure standing by the water’s edge. “I wonder.”


End file.
